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<p>Any is too much.</p>
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<p>This is from a 2004 source</p>
<p>[Illegal</a> Immigration Costs California $10.5 Billion Annually](<a href=“http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigrationnaturalizatio/a/caillegals.htm]Illegal”>Immigration Facts and Resources)</p>
<p>Hopscout…I think we discussed this before and you were clueless…</p>
<p>So now I am asking…Bay?</p>
<p>What are the costs?</p>
<p>dstark,
I don’t think it is possible to know, since to my knowledge, CCs, CSUs and UCs do not keep data on the legal citizenship status of its students, so long as they can prove CA residency.</p>
<p>Lakemom…thanks for the link…</p>
<p>Illegal immigration is declining…so costs will hopefully go down…</p>
<p>As usual, both the left wing and the right wing propose their pet solutions (“throw more money” vs. “get rid of unions and illegals”). This is a long-term, near-intractable problem. Sorry guys, there are no simple solutions - or painless ones - or, I fear, politically achievable ones.</p>
<p>Here is a nice (imo) overview of the impact of illegal immigration on CA’s education system over the past 30 years: [National</a> Review Online: Stop Illegals, Save CA : NPR](<a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112167023]National”>National Review Online: Stop Illegals, Save CA : NPR)</p>
<p>Illegal immigration is declining…</p>
<p>[Is</a> illegal immigration passé? - Los Angeles Times](<a href=“http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/01/opinion/la-ed-adv-pew-20120501]Is”>Is illegal immigration passé?)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/atissue/AI_711HJAI.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/atissue/AI_711HJAI.pdf</a></p>
<p>As long as the political debate about illegal immigration is really a proxy for arguments about race and ethnicity (even though most won’t say it), nothing productive will get done.</p>
<p>But it all comes down to legal immigration being too difficult and illegal immigration being too easy.</p>
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<p>Then they can just stay out. Next you’ll want to give away a college degree rather than make people actually work for it!</p>
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<p>I’d say its the opposite: So long as the discussion about illegal immigration is suppressed by those crying “racism,” nothing productive will get done.</p>
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<p>That’s only half of it. The noisy part of the right wing mostly does not like Latinos, and the noisy part of the left wing mostly cries racism at everything. Together they drown out everything else.</p>
<p>After all, what can be more free market (in the labor market) than a very permissive legal immigration system? Isn’t the free market very much a right wing ideal?</p>
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<p>They can go through the channels that have already been established. Do it the right way and people don’t care. It’s the gross amount of people doing it illegal that is so upsetting.</p>
<p>Imho, I believe one can discuss the obvious resulting problems with the economics of unfettered illegal immigration without harboring secret negative feelings about any particular race. As a caring human being, one can sympathize with anothers predicatment in wanting a better life for their family than is available in their home country, and concurrently disagree strongly with illegal activity that has consequences too numerous to mention here.</p>
<p>I think Prop 13 is a good thing and truly protects an aging population from getting taxed out of their homes. CA is already ofne of the most over-taxed states, and thank goodness for protection against runaway taxation on ones home value. </p>
<p>I hope we in CA, and as a country, find a politician with the courage to break down our budget woes with a business mind and political bravery to face unions and political hot-button of illegal immigration. (A good part of the reason it has subsided is because our economy is so bad. The lure has lost its luster due to declining job opportunties. As soon as our economy improves, the numbers will go right back up.)</p>
<p>I don’t believe it is just the teacher’s union that needs a bit of tweaking, but our huge state infrastructrure and ridiculous pension benefits that are unsustainable.</p>
<p>Though I think our public college system is still a good in-state deal, the idea that the problem will be solved with increased fees and taxation just adds more burden on an over-burdened populous. CA needs to seriously shore up its budget, but the measuers needed to do that are fought tooth and nail by every conceivable interest group in the state. We’ve got a serious quagmire here…but I guess that doesn’t need pointing out…</p>
<p>ucb,
If we had a functioning free market within our borders, we would not need illegal immigration, because employers would be offering appropriate wages for awful jobs. But this is outside the scope of this thread.</p>
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<p>A lot of it has come from the lack of following the law for the last several years. In the state of Illinois, the pension system has become “unsustainable” because the legislature decided to quit paying into it correctly. There, teachers pay over 9% of their salary into the pension system and it would be fully funded IF the legislature hadn’t decided to take that money and run.</p>
<p>In terms of property tax, Calif is not one of the highest taxed states. Thanks to prop 13.</p>
<p>[Best</a> and Worst States for Property Taxes - The 10 States With the Highest and Lowest Property Taxes](<a href=“http://taxes.about.com/od/statetaxes/a/property-taxes-best-and-worst-states.htm]Best”>The 10 Best and 10 Worst States for Property Taxes)</p>
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<p>If we cleaned up the overly complex legal immigration system, and made more immigration legal, then we would not have so much illegal immigration.</p>
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<p>Because capital flows more freely across borders than labor does, employers export jobs instead of importing workers. Exporting jobs tends to be worse for the economy than importing workers.</p>
<p>Maybe that is not necessarily true in real life.</p>